Red Hot Chili Peppers ink $300M deal with Warner Music to sell catalog
hollywoodreporter.comhttps://guitar.com/news/industry-news/red-hot-chili-peppers-... Give it away, give it away, give it away now Give it away, give it away, give it away now Give it away, give it away, give it away now I can't tell, if I'm a king pin or a pauper Under the Bridge is still my favorite... Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner
Sometimes I feel like my only friend
Is the city I live in, The City of Angels
Lonely as I am, together we cry The music video is great too... the slow build up of the song towards the 3:10 minute mark, with him running towards you. Love it. So thankful I was old enough to be around to watch it on MTV. Sometimes I sing under lights that are purple. Sometimes I'm shirtless and I tilt my head. Agreed by far their best. Others still slap though. The intro to Snow is great too. Also pretty little ditty Behind the Sun. Unimpressed by material excess I came here to write this! This is one of the reasons we can't have proper soundtracks in video games or non AAA TV shows anymore or re-releases of old TV-shows anymore. I just feel bad for all the pension fonds backing this Bain Capital PE joint venture who will have an off chance of making back their investments with the current state of IP and AI trends. A valid concern generally, but if you're concerned about soundtrack quality, RHCP has done the world a favor by locking it up inside Warner. Savage Golf clap In a world full of endless AI slop, wouldn't original recordings become more valuable over time? Based on the era when RHCP was the most popular, I would guess that PE people buying the RHCP catalog plan to license it to advertisers for just about everything as Gen-X people age into the 60+ demographic and retirement. You can expect to see RHCP music in adult diaper and "help I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials in the future. Only if the talent pool was restricted or if they also hold the distribution keys. Unfortunately, anyone can buy a $300 guitar and become a master, given time and commitment. This can then be used to influence AI into cleaning up your sloppy playing and off-tempo. Possibly even creating entirely new sounds from it (midi?) and then anyone can create a signature sound and model a band or music group around that motif. The short version is no, not anymore. Yes, like in a world full of electronic music, original recordings of guitar players became more valuable over time. Re: the "low price", they'd already sold their publishing right in 2021 for $140MM, so this is the master rights they sold for 300. By comparison, Springsteen sold both his together to Sony in 2021 for $500MM. I don't think they're just selling the mastering rights here, it's the rights for the recordings that are being played that is being sold here. > The new deal with Warner Music Group hands over the rights to the official recordings, meaning the label will profit from any further streaming, radio play or album sales. Edit: I'm stupid, you mean "master rights", which is correct, they're getting the rights of the masters. Your typo made me think of the act of mastering music, not the "masters". Fixed - thanks! I'm surprised the number is this low! Queen sold their catalogue for $1.27bn and while RHCP are clearly not on their scale I thought they were pretty high up there, especially given how long they've been active. All subjective and all that. But I feel like 300M vs. 1.27B is exactly where I would have personally pinned their ratio difference. To roughly frame it: if we made another golden record, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had 4 Queen songs and 1 RHCP song. Same, or worse. Having lived in Europe and Korea I can tell you numerous Queen songs have instant recognizability the world over, but I would say RHCP are a household name mostly in the US, except maybe some older people recognizing Californication as a distinctly 90s happening. Everyone in my country can karaoke bohemian rhapsody- even 11 year old girls. Not a lot of artists can truly transcend their era like that.
Most remain stuck in nostalgia. In Europe it's cheating. Queen is from Europe. But yeah, Californication is pretty much my only rhcp reference. Also: what do you mean "older people"? I ain't that old yet! Shakes fist at cloud Man, I don't get why Californication is the reference for RHCP when Blood Sugar Sex Magik is start to finish excellence. Their earlier stuff, eg Mother's Milk, was more raw and pure, not ballad-ey. "Knock Me Down" is my fav, their cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" is fantastic, imo. Comparing them to Queen doesn't make sense, they are different genre. >In Europe it's cheating. Queen is from Europe. Queen is from one country in Europe, there are many countries in Europe. Anyway following your argument - who do you think is more recognized in Mexico: Queen or RHCP? Lol, not sure if you went through my comment history and already know that I currently live in Mexico, if not, that's a funny coincidence! It's a lot less clear cut here than in Europe (I'm from Sweden originally), but I do think Queen wins out. I stand by my statement that it's cheating on Europe, but Queen is bigger and better than rhcp no matter how you look at it. How are they in the states? In the US rhcp has the home field advantage(or cheating as I called it the previous comment), but I kinda think Queen is bigger even so. That said I've never even visited the US so that's just 100% speculation on my part. funny coincidence. As I have not been in the U.S for a lot of years and don't currently plan on returning I go from what I remember and it was Queen by quite a bit. Going by one hint as to popularity, Queen is more frequently sampled, I bet most people can think of three or four tracks from Queen that get parts reused all over hip hop, RHCP has basically Give It Away. Oh man, I don't even like Californication. Give me Otherside every day. Californication was 2000. I think a single came out in the summer of 1999 off that album though. The Californication album was released in 1999, the song Californication as the fourth single was in 2000. Ah the album came out June 8, 1999. Okay I still don't call that the "90s" :) The album's lifetime was very much the early 2000s! Some off the Queen songs are quite catchy and instantly appeal to a large public. They're more of an iconic band. The name of the band is also quite good for their identity. Californication is a radio tune. There's more to RHCP than that. I won't pretend it's sophisticated like John Coltrane, Nils Petter Molvær or some cult band like The Doors or The Velvet Underground, but it's still something to dive into and listen to carefully if you have the time and inclination. It's also less niche than INXS for instance. People (outside of Korea too) listen to Black Pink and BTS. Which is totally fine, but the last ones are more proficient on the dance and show side of things. Also, having mentioned Korean girl and boy bands, I find Psy's Gangnam Style song quite satyrical and also very catchy. In terms of artistic quality, perhaps. In terms of expected future royalties, I think Queen would be an order of magnitude more valuable than most artists. So its all good since it sold for an order of magnitude more Beyond a certain amount, the actual number becomes meaningless especially for people who already have dynastic wealth not even counting this. It's just what they happened to negotiate. It's quite a retirement package. It was also a different market in 2024. Much more fluid private credit industry, deal volume was much higher[1] and under very different interest rate regime[2], also generated music was just getting somewhat decent and the risk probably wasn't being factored in to long term value yet. [1] The Queen deal came at end of series of high profile catalog acquisitions all 500M+ buys - Springsteen, Jackson(half), Bob Dylan. [2] Interest rate while high was trending down and widely expected to even reach to pre-pandemic levels in few quarters. yeah also surprised. and as mentioned elsewhere, RHCP is still young enough to crank out a few more albums and tour. Bruce Springsteen kept cranking until his 80s and sold the catalog for $500M I assume the band is basically tapped out and ready to rest on laurels Bruce is 76 Sting reportedly got $300 mil back in 2022 Queen made music. RHCP make noise. That does seem like less than I would expect! It always makes me a bit sad that everyone knows RHCP but less so their early stuff. Blood sugar sex magik is a funk masterpiece. Didn’t help that for years Spotify used the singles versions of the tracks so the levels were all over the place and it was basically unstreamable. Freaky Styley is their funk masterpiece. haha Fair. It did have George Clinton at the helm. I loved all the early stuff. Freaky Styley, Mothers Milk, The Uplift Mofo party plan. With Rick Rubin at the controls I just think Blood Sugar Sex Magik took their sound to another level. $300M is a lot though. Out in L.A. Hopefully someone can remaster/re-release their albums with less awful mastering from the master recordings. Most copies, including the copies on Streaming Services for Califonication are genuinely unlistenable. [0]. [0] - https://web.archive.org/web/20221117074108/https://dr.loudne...
[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20221117074109/https://dr.loudne...
[2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20221117074108/https://dr.loudne... Is there any write up about how these economics work? How much does the catalog generate in a year? The band must be past peak popularity, with listens continuing to decline year after year. Someone writes an NPV and everyone says great! I looked into the math a bit when Bieber sold his. Didn’t seem worth it but what do I know. listens continuing to decline year after year. Streaming music is only the tip of the iceberg. Most TV commercials are using 30-year-old songs. Add to that streaming series (think Stranger Things), movies, public spaces, internet radio, actual radio, and hundreds of other licensing opportunities await. Every credit card rewards program will "give it away now" from now on > By the way, > I tried to say > CRAZY BIG BOB IS HAVING ANOTHER CRAZY SALE THIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND!!! > so don't wait for Dani, come on down and say "I love you" to a pre-owned Nissan! As someone not in the industry, what exactly does it mean? The band no longer can perform the music? They no longer get royalties? They no longer can profit at all from the music? They no longer have control over where/how it's sold? Or, something else? What exactly is Warner/Bain buying? It's a bit like an individual person taking the option of receiving a lottery payment in one large lump sum (and nothing else, ever), vs. receiving ongoing monthly/annual payments for some period going into the future. The new owner pays them one big lump sum and then the new owner gets all rights to license the content for things like car commercials on TV, streaming, reissues of box sets, radio, etc. Also for derivative works of all forms and basically whatever the new owner wants to do with it. They sold the future royalties. "The new deal with Warner Music Group hands over the rights to the official recordings, meaning the label will profit from any further streaming, radio play or album sales." All of the above. They are probably required to still perform the songs on behalf of Warner Music but that's it. They are free to write more music... Old music is no longer theirs though. If they've sold the name, they may not be able to perform new music as the RHCP either. New musical projects would possibly need an entirely unrelated name of a music group. They just sold the rights to the recordings though, as the article states. They have an asset that earns regular income. They are selling the asset and forgoing the regular income in exchange for a lump sum from the sale. For instance if you own a rental property, you get regular income from rent. If you sell the house you get a lump sum and no longer get any rent. In this case the asset is musical recordings. $300 million, all songs about California Please no more California songs. This is unfair, they go All Around The World - from Alabama to Kazakhstan. But not as far as Zambia. Wow, I just a saw a YouTube video of Flea's house for sale in the LA suburb of La Crescenta for sale. Super nice house. Strangely I also saw Steve Vai's house for sale in LA at the same time. Also super nice house. Well Flea just released a jazz record where he plays trumpet. I admire him for it, but might need some financing now. He also played in a Star Wars series as a bad guy kidnapping Pricess Leia. I like him a lot. And in Back to the Future too Maybe trying to escape the wealth tax? Not sure any of the band members are over 1b individually which is the current threshold. Maybe, though. There have been arguments that the wealth tax proposal has loopholes that would allow it to be extended to much lower levels of wealth without a further amendment. More importantly, if that’s the way the state’s politics are trending, it might be worth it to leave and come back if the threat goes away. Who knows, maybe one of the band members invested in a successful startup, or is an LP for a VC that did. That’s not unheard of for the entertainment industry. Most people wouldn’t have pegged Ashton Kutcher as an investing genius, but he has been highly successful. Relatively small amount compared to the billions we see thrown around for AI startups a couple of years old. True, but don't be fooled by imaginary "valuations" in the billions. RHCP is definitely getting paid real money. Janis Joplin in a car commercial was the funniest thing ever and it oddly made sense. Most people are just not cool enough to die from alcohol or drugs and they become the boomers. Bon Jovi selling insurance during the Super Bowl… Tough look. Hard to tell what the value of music will be in 5 years The value of guaranteed real stuff, with known provenance, still remains in the world of mass production; a "real Louis Vuitton bag" is still worth more than a very good copy, or a very good bag from an unknown designer. But most of the market, is, of course, lower end. Probably "good enough" machine-produced music is going to dominate casual playlists, but some bands still will have large followings, and live show still be valuable. "Luis" Vuitton is the knockoff brand, but point taken. Sorry, it was a typo; fixed. (French and Spanish orthographies differ here, but both names were accepted by the spellchecker.) Digital music? Probably non-existent. Live music played by actual musicians? Just as much. Not really, I don't want to listen to AI slop. I have such a love/hate with this band. They have some great songs. Great musicians. John Frusciante is one of my favorite guitarists. But they are such cheeseballs, and in the case of Anthony Kiedes, pretty creepy. Can't wait for the RHCP biopic in 2028! Can't wait for the pharmaceutical commercials with RHCP jingles It'll be a Broadway play first to test it out. With James Corden as Flea. That’s all they got?! I'd rather it be WMG than IP Venture Partners Acquisition Round 7 LLC like some bands have done. Good for them. I have a memory of first seeing them in their video True Men Don't Kill Coyotes† around 1984? and thinking "wow these guys are terrible". In hindsight, they were very 90s and pretty ahead of their time. Now I can pirate guilt free That honestly sounds like a good deal for the buyer at first blush but can’t say I’m an expert here With the trend of things, this seems like good timing for the RHCP estates with a not so unlikely collapse of licensing revenue happening in the near future. I wonder if you tend to see more artists selling their back catalogues at times like this when some technological disruption is casting doubt on their ability to continue to generate income from them. David Bowie was famously one of the first artists to securitise music royalties, in 1997, basically at the dawn of the digital copying era. Why would licensing revenue for hit songs collapse? Most of the Red Hot Chili Peppers hit songs are pushing 30 years old. Their songs have already hit their peak popularity and will only be declining from now on. This along with AI generated music flooding the market. An AI generated song has already been #1 on the iTunes Charts. AI generated music is only going to get better and more popular. Future TV shows/movies/etc. will likely just be generating their own music, rather than paying royalties for "hit songs". I picked up Cyberpunk again recently. It's gotten me curious about how the music for the game was developed. They have something like a dozen in-universe radio stations, which each has a handful of original songs. Mixtape (game) clearly shows the power of and demand for familiar songs. See also: wedding receptions. People don’t want just want “song sound good enough.” They have connections to specific bands/artists. Music is like…50% about the song, 50% about the memories associated with the band/album/song. Random AI generated stuff…call me old fashioned, but I just don’t think it’ll make real music by real people go out of fashion. Plus there’s live shows. > Most of the Red Hot Chili Peppers hit songs are pushing 30 years old. Their songs have already hit their peak popularity and will only be declining from now on. Bach is still hot some 300 years later. > An AI generated song has already been #1 on the iTunes Charts. That's a good resaon enough to cancel your subscription. I do get your point. They're taking the retirement package. The world officially sucks one bit more now. RHCP selling off, AI music. Hey, at least the Rolling Stones are on tour again. Jagger is 82 and still dope. > Most of the Red Hot Chili Peppers hit songs are pushing 30 years old. And? That hasn't been a problem for other artist catalogues >An AI generated song has already been #1 on the iTunes Charts. Yeah? It's a real big hit, huh? If you believe all of this, then I can see how it would make sense. It doesn't really pass the sniff test. >Future TV shows/movies/etc. will likely just be generating their own music, rather than paying royalties for "hit songs". Why would they? They can already have knock-off whatever song they want for a trivial cost This is as close as you get to a win win in life. PSA: this article is re-reporting the original story at: > Rumours of the Chilis selling their catalogue first arose last year, with sources telling Billboard that the rockers were allegedly seeking around $350 million. Now, The Hollywood Reporter reports[1] that the band has finally made a deal with Warner Music Group, with the label paying over $300 million for all of the band’s master recordings. [1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-industry-news/... Thanks, we updated the link. Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. Feels cheap Music and streaming is severely under attack from an effort/commercial viability perspective given tools like Suno[1] Not exactly saying this is the reason for their sell, but I'd imagine a lot of professional musicians are feeling the desire to exit the industry. [1] https://www.npr.org/2026/05/02/nx-s1-5804489/music-listeners... As a record maker, I'd say record making is under attack from Suno about as much as novelists are under attack from Chat GPT. Both still require a crafts person to steer the tools, if they're to be used at all. Yes there will be slop, but neither Suno nor GPT are close to making coherent work with creators with taste and good judgement.